To clarify. Auto ISO *IS* the devil. If you want high quality shots, turn it off and forget you ever saw it. Your camera doesn't care if you get noise in your shadow areas. It has no vested interest in the quality of your pictures. It's trying to help you get acceptably sharp pictures by speeding things up, but remember - You are its master - take charge and tell it to use ISO 100, unless you consider the conditions and decide otherwise. Or you're drunk.
Friday, 25 November 2011
Thursday, 24 November 2011
Compositional Rules
In any pastime or activity there are people who will tell you that there are certain rules that you must not break. Photography is something of an exception in that you will rarely be introduced to the 'rules' such as they are, without also being told that they are there to be broken. What you will also be told however, is that to break them effectively, you must first understand them. In this section I will introduce one such rule. It's the most well known of the compositional rules and it is usually referred to as 'The rule of thirds'.
Before we get into that though I think it important to mention balance. This is the balance of an image and its composition rather than that of the photographer, who may be extremely lopsided with no negative impact on their pictures... Sometimes you will see an image that feels awkward, lopsided, or weighted too heavily towards one side, or the top or bottom of the frame. Often in images seen in magazines or online portfolios, this is a deliberate choice by the photographer to induce a sense of unease in the viewer, usually considered appropriate to the subject matter. There will often be a story associated with the image, which the feeling of awkwardness somehow enhances. Conversely though, many photographs seen in magazines and particularly on posters will feel very relaxing as your eye wanders over them; as of everything is in its right place and the whole thing feels balanced. Left and right are given equal precedence whether that be subject points, large background elements, or similar levels of nothing. The foreground and the background (usually frame bottom and top, respectively) each have something to offer, whether that is interest or space. This is compositional balance, and is what many photographers strive toward, much of the time.
And so to the rule. If you take a typical scene with a main subject, some background interest, maybe some empty space, and imagine you're looking at it through a 3x3 grid, like a noughts and crosses (tic tac toe) board. The image is split equally into nine squares or rectangles. The rule of thirds asserts that if you place your main subject on one of the four intersection points, and any horizon or other horizontal dividing lines across either the top or bottom third, you will likely end up with a more balanced and interesting photograph than if you point your central focus point directly at the main subject and fire the shutter. Go back to those landscapes on the net or in magazines or on posters. Many of them you will see follow or almost-follow this rule, and the ones that don't are not even close, like they set out to deliberately go against it. Even those where the subject is central or symmetrical horizontally will often have a horizon or other dividing line on the upper or lower third boundary.
As I said, the rule is meant to be broken but first (grasshopper) you must understand what you are breaking and why. Take the rule of thirds with you on your next landscape photography trip, or next time you visit a stately home or monument, and see how different your photos turn out from those you took before. Sometime soon I'll return to 'the rules' and discuss how and when to go about breaking them.
Before we get into that though I think it important to mention balance. This is the balance of an image and its composition rather than that of the photographer, who may be extremely lopsided with no negative impact on their pictures... Sometimes you will see an image that feels awkward, lopsided, or weighted too heavily towards one side, or the top or bottom of the frame. Often in images seen in magazines or online portfolios, this is a deliberate choice by the photographer to induce a sense of unease in the viewer, usually considered appropriate to the subject matter. There will often be a story associated with the image, which the feeling of awkwardness somehow enhances. Conversely though, many photographs seen in magazines and particularly on posters will feel very relaxing as your eye wanders over them; as of everything is in its right place and the whole thing feels balanced. Left and right are given equal precedence whether that be subject points, large background elements, or similar levels of nothing. The foreground and the background (usually frame bottom and top, respectively) each have something to offer, whether that is interest or space. This is compositional balance, and is what many photographers strive toward, much of the time.
And so to the rule. If you take a typical scene with a main subject, some background interest, maybe some empty space, and imagine you're looking at it through a 3x3 grid, like a noughts and crosses (tic tac toe) board. The image is split equally into nine squares or rectangles. The rule of thirds asserts that if you place your main subject on one of the four intersection points, and any horizon or other horizontal dividing lines across either the top or bottom third, you will likely end up with a more balanced and interesting photograph than if you point your central focus point directly at the main subject and fire the shutter. Go back to those landscapes on the net or in magazines or on posters. Many of them you will see follow or almost-follow this rule, and the ones that don't are not even close, like they set out to deliberately go against it. Even those where the subject is central or symmetrical horizontally will often have a horizon or other dividing line on the upper or lower third boundary.
As I said, the rule is meant to be broken but first (grasshopper) you must understand what you are breaking and why. Take the rule of thirds with you on your next landscape photography trip, or next time you visit a stately home or monument, and see how different your photos turn out from those you took before. Sometime soon I'll return to 'the rules' and discuss how and when to go about breaking them.
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